Guest Starring...

The long-awaited guest blog is finally here! Read on to find out what my guest chose to talk about with their love of film (Disclaimer: he wrote this under free-will. Bribes were not exchanged, no matter what he wants you to believe...)

This is a story as old as time. You try to do something nice and it blows up in your face and you end up writing a blog, or something like that. Anyway, yes, I am the friend that suggested what I consider to be a great idea. Unfortunately, the Christmas spirit seemed to grasp the author of this blog so tightly they couldn’t possibly complete the challenge. So for my post I thought I would take a quick look at my favourite and least favourite films of the last decade, a quite simple intro blog for me, as a first-timer. I don’t have the talent or experience of the author of this blog so please don’t expect Shakespeare here.

 1) The Dark Knight (2008)

Let's ignore for a second that I had said of the last decade...

So my favourite film on this list: Batman The Dark Knight; how original, I know. But you just can’t deny the quality of this film. Now admittedly, I’m that guy that associates Bruce Wayne with Christian Bale and vice-versa, even though I love him in Equilibrium, and American Psycho among other things. But he is my favourite Batman, I think he portrays him well, and the voice is iconic. Let’s move on to the best bit, Heath Ledger, The Joker. I mean come on is there anyone that doesn’t think that’s one of the best performances? So many iconic scenes; the gang meeting with the pencil, the hospital, the jail cell, that taxi. Don’t get me wrong I liked Joaquin Phoenix as The Joker, I thought the film was great and his portrayal was incredible, and it was amazing to learn more about The Joker. But I have never loved a villain so much. I will never tire of watching this film and even though I love the other Bale Batman films, this one tops the lot.

2) Interstellar (2014)

Secondly, Interstellar. I love space, I love films about space. This for me is Matthew McConaughey's best role. Christopher Nolan works his magic once again in this epic space adventure. The plot is outstanding and the ending sends shivers down the spine. But my favourite thing, by far, is the soundtrack. Hans Zimmer is a genius and has made great soundtracks for Batman and Inception amongst others. But the soundtrack in this film is unreal, without knowing the context of this film, it takes you into deep, lonely space. I urge you to listen to the soundtrack in a dark room and let it take you away. Anne Hathaway produces a stellar supporting role, but McConaughey is the star of the show. It’s a long film but it draws you in and it’s full of tension throughout. For me it beats Arrival with Amy Adams to top spot in sci-fi for me but I would highly recommend Arrival too.

3) Baby Driver (2017)

Finally, I’m going to have to go with Baby Driver, I thought long and hard about this pick because the top 2 were obvious to me, but this pick caused me trouble and I have re-written this a few times with different films. Baby Driver is the story of a young guy who drives cars for a crew that robs banks, led by Kevin Spacey (I know). But the real story of this film is the music, the whole film is rhythmic and pulsating. Every song played dictates the tempo of the scene, and sound effects match the beat. It’s funny, it's action packed, it’s emotional, it has everything. I have seen Ansel Elgort in a few other things but it just feels like the role of ‘Baby’ feels like it was made for him. The introduction to the film sets the stall out early; walking for coffee, Baby is in time with the music and all is good, the lyrics of the song are written on walls, and electricity poles all around him, he smiles at everyone he sees and the main love interest is introduced. Gee, what a great film this is. Please go and watch it. I would adore a sequel to this film.

Now onto my least favourite, now this has caused me all sorts of problems because there are so many to choose from.

1) Jack and Jill (2011)

 

So firstly I’ve gone with everything that Adam Sandler was in, I just despise almost everything he is in. Is there a film where he doesn’t play the same drawn out, loud, moronic character? So just to name a few: The Do-Over, That’s my Boy, Just Go With It, and my absolute least favourite: Jack and Jill. That film is pure torture, I would rather do anything than watch that film. It’s tragic. Can you imagine pitching a film where not only Adam Sandler is picked to play the character of Jack but, oh yeah, Adam Sandler will also be playing his own sister?

2) Movie 43 (2013)

Secondly, Movie 43. What was the point? I really hate all films like this, just a random assortment of celebrities in a poorly scripted, cringey film. I didn’t even make it to the end of this film because I genuinely couldn’t, and I can’t even ask you to watch it to experience how bad it is because it’s morally wrong. 0/10, I genuinely couldn’t remember what this film was called and had to Google ‘awful films’ to remember the name, and it came up as the first search result. That says it all.

3) Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014)

And finally. Transformers: Age of Extinction. I was a big Transformers fan and I really enjoyed the Shia LaBeouf ones, but this just totally ruined them for me. I really enjoyed Sam as a character and his relationship with Bumblebee, but now all of a sudden it was just any other action films and was all about how many impressive fight scenes they could fit in. It lost all of the emotion from the previous films, and the story just seemed to take of into something completely different. I still feel aggrieved and feel like I was owed just one more great Transformer film.

Well then that’s it. My first ever blog post. I would appreciate the feedback, and if you watch any of the film mentioned or have any comments on my choices then please let me know. It is also much easier to write about films I like, especially as the films I don’t like hardly live long in the memory and I really, really didn’t want to watch them again. I think all this has done is increase my admiration for the author, I knew this would be very difficult, but this was very tough. And that’s why even after I’ve had to read this terrible entry on the blog I will continue to read it, and you should too. Now the author will love that I’ve been so complimentary here, and will hold it over me forever, so I would just like to mention that I still think my challenge idea was a great one and there was definitely a conspiracy here to get me to write an entry. But you didn’t hear that from me...

Written by: James